On May 18, 2009, according to my writings on the world's oldest blog, I became a runner again. I went to the track at another local college and ran a mile (and walked a mile). The next day, I ran a mile and walked a half-mile. It wasn’t until day three that I started my speedwork.

warm-up: 400m
work-out: 6x60m, 1x100m
cool-down: chasing children back down the hill; encouraging Lex not to push babykins's stroller into the high hurdles

It felt damn good to do speedwork again, and, now that I think about it, I need to do more of it. Maybe once a week.

Like my life, I tracked my runs on my blog. If you search “training log” on www.worldsoldestblog.com, you’ll get 27 search results. That doesn’t count the first one; that one’s not called a training log because I wasn’t ready to smack a title on it yet, but it does list two workouts, plus a third in the pool. And I probably forgot to track one more at some point this summer, so I figure I ran 30 times between 5/20/2009 and 9/9/2009, which becomes the fraction 30/120 and reduces to a quarter of those days.

I could beat someone in a race now, which is saying something, because I ran a “Four [miles] on the Fourth” on Independence Day and came in dead last.

(Also, my race report wasn't titled “training log” so there, it's more than a quarter.)

Let me live up to my title. Before we left for California, I’d lost 5 pounds. Doesn’t sound like much, five pounds between late-May and early August, but a lot of underlying fat turned to muscle, and anyone who’s EVER been on a diet knows that muscle weighs more. Besides, I prefer to go by how my clothes fit (because scales make me crazy). Today I I wore my used-to-be-too-tight bra on the tightest row of hooks and it felt just fine all day; I wasn't even aware of it.

Changing into my lounge clothes tonight, I stood before my standing floor-length mirror. My waist, while not perfectly defined, is at least definable. I think I can flaunt that part of me a bit, to keep the gazes from my sagging, jowly lower belly, left over from the birth of nearly 18 pounds of children.

I’m down to just one roll of back-fat, and, the middle of my lower back would now look just as good with a tramp stamp as anyone’s lower-middle-back would (yes, that's a different question for another time).

To sum up: my clothes that were too small on May 18th fit me now. My clothes that were too small on June 18th fit me now. And the afternoon of my 20th high-school reunion I had to go shopping at Nordstrom because the dress I'd brought didn't fit: like papa bear's chair, it was too big. In total, I lost two sizes but found a half-size of that back because California was superfun and coming home sucked. Even so, I’m looking better than before and almost pretty good. And not as much of that is due to the obtuse angle I’ve set my full-length mirror to; in fact, the mirror is closer to straight-up-and-down as it’s ever been.

And, I’m nearly almost out of the true fat sizes and within satellite range of shopping somewhere they don't sell capris, which are the fashion industry's nod toward our pudgy-girl kickiness but really just make us look dumpy.

-ier?
So yeah, I'm motivated. For lots of reasons. I don’t want to buy any more fat clothes. My hatchling cheekbones are beginning their extrusion process. (A make-up woman at Macy’s once told me, “you got some bones, girl.” That was when I lost 20 pounds about 18 years ago.)
I want to keep going with this, because I’m staring seven months of winter snow in the face and one thing I’ve never learned how to do is run on a treadmill. Done it twice, crashed spectacularly twice, and not certain what to do to get back up on that horse and fucking stay there already.
And also, in my 20s, I ran for the Sun Microsystems corporate track team, the memories of which are some of my fondest, in particular the meet that started with my first women’s cross-country race, which I won.
I didn’t run today, breaking a four-day streak. Instead, I took the boys to lunch at Friendly’s and my gastrointestinal distress started exactly 57 minutes after I signed the debit-card slip. Though I didn’t run, I had the runs, which in my estimation should count for at least something, being so close logos-istically and all.
Ultimately, I’m going to run through at least the autumn, because it feels good to have to buy a new pair of running shoes because you’ve blown out your old pair by running, and Massachusetts isn’t exactly totally miserable when the leaves change. And if that isn’t enough, I’ll remember back to my first speedwork on May 20th, one-hundred-twenty days ago, During my final repeat, the hundred-meter dash:
Lex screamed, “Mommy, you go so fast!” And then, when I was done, he gave me a big hug and said, “I proud of you, Mommy.” Melt my effin' heart.

That, my children, is what you call fat-mom motivation. Especially when I’m reading a Runner’s World magazine and he points to a picture of woman running and says she looks like me.